As the world fights obesity at the human level, scientists at the University of Michigan and their colleagues have made a surprising finding at the microscopic level that could help fuel that fight. Their work helps explain why fat-storing cells get fatter, and burn fat slower, as obesity sets in. If their findings from mice can be shown to apply to humans, they may provide a new target for obesity-fighting drugs. By studying the tiny signals that fat-storing cells send to one another, the team has shown a crucial and previously unknown role for a molecule called Sfrp5.
